The West Bengal Chief Electoral Officer’s (CEO) office has placed two significant proposals before the Election Commission of India (ECI), seeking safeguards to ensure that genuine voters are not excluded from the final electoral roll due to the absence of prescribed documents in certain exceptional cases. Sources said the recommendations were framed keeping humanitarian and practical considerations in mind amid the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the voter list.
One of the key proposals relates to women voters who do not possess any of the 11 documents mandated under the SIR guidelines. The CEO’s office observed that the names of several such women were also absent from the 2002 voter list. However, further verification revealed that many of them are spouses or widows of state or central government employees, with several receiving regular government pensions following the death of their husbands.
In this context, the CEO’s office has proposed that these women should not be excluded from the voter list solely due to the lack of documentation. It said that government-issued pension papers constitute credible official documents and should be accepted as valid proof for retaining their names in the final electoral roll.
The second proposal is about cases involving families where children possess Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe (SC-ST) certificates, but the parents do not. Officials noted that in earlier years, the requirement for such certificates was not widespread, leading many parents to forgo obtaining them.
According to the CEO’s office, excluding parents from the voter list merely due to the absence of SC-ST certificates would be illogical in the present context. It has therefore recommended that the Election Commission grant special relaxation in such cases to prevent the wrongful deletion of names.
Earlier, the Election Commission reported that discrepancies were detected in the records of nearly one crore voters. An internal review revealed that these inconsistencies are not uniform and include issues related to family relationships, age gaps and inheritance-related information.
Amid the SIR exercise, the CEO’s office has begun issuing notices to around 94.5 lakh voters after identifying what it termed “logical discrepancies” in electoral details. The Election Commission has clarified that such discrepancies do not automatically lead to the deletion of names.
However, the Commission has cautioned that failure to respond to notices within the stipulated timeframe or to submit the required documents could affect the final voter list.
As hearings under the SIR process continue, political parties are closely watching how the Election Commission responds to the CEO’s proposals. The CEO’s office has maintained that the primary objective of the exercise is to ensure transparency in the electoral roll while safeguarding the voting rights of genuine citizens.
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